


relatively stable (tentatively able)

by thermocline



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, HUGE SPOILERS, Hurt, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 11:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14448642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thermocline/pseuds/thermocline
Summary: It’s loud, like flipping through radio stations, the layers not quite coherent, but desperate all the same.





	relatively stable (tentatively able)

**Author's Note:**

> this is KIND OF a short fix-it because i literally just got out of infinity war two hours ago. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. I tagged it as ensemble to avoid the Who Died Wait Don't Tell Me complex. 
> 
> this fic also waxes poetic. i love being a dramatic bitch, sorry. title from "for sure" by american football.
> 
> it's my first time writing marvel in several years so be gentle, thanks and enjoy. i hope this brings you, the reader, some comfort.

The first thing he feels is cold, on his wrists, up his arms, not the freezing kind, just - a sense. A sketch of feeling.

 

“Hey,” someone says, and he turns, and she’s - green. She’s green, sitting cross-legged on the luminescent floor. Her hair whips around her head, carried by a wind he cannot feel. There is no breeze. 

 

Bucky tries to respond, but nothing comes out. Nothing happens except he realizes that he cannot breathe, and the panic kicks in. He’s drowned before. This feels like drowning, without the weight. 

 

“Oh, god,” she murmurs, and reaches towards him, and then there’s a sound like shattering glass, and someone’s running towards them. 

 

Behind the figure running, there’s nothing for miles. Absolutely nothing.

 

“Hey!” It’s a man. He continues towards them, staggering, pieces of his body flickering in, out, attach, detach. He looks a little like Steve. Same jaw, tired eyes. “Fuck, is it - are you-“

 

Bucky’s heart aches.

 

She turns, as if underwater. Her hands float through the space. He’s frozen, watching the two of them embrace. Something isn’t quite right, their bodies shifting in the light, but he can’t place it. Wouldn’t know how to.

 

“Gamora,” the man says. 

 

“Yeah,” she replies. “Yeah, hey, hi.”

 

She moves to intertwine her hand with his. It reminds Bucky of the way Nat used to move when dancing, balletic, soft articulation and grace behind each finger. It’s eerie. He’s not sure if he’s imagining it, or if it’s there, or it he just can’t see well enough.

 

The man opens his mouth, stops. Bucky knows. He knows the man wants to scream, ask where they are.

 

The longer Bucky looks around, the more out of body he feels.

 

His hands won’t touch each other quite right. His pinkies overlap, moving through each other. At one moment, they’re nothing. At another, they’re solid, warm against each other.

 

Below his feet, the ground undulates just a little. He watches it become a patchwork of hardwood and grass and concrete, tiles stained in blood, twigs piled on a forest floor – areas marbled, different yard to yard, like a child’s map of their home. 

 

It stops moving, solidifies, and the air around him seems to inhale expectantly.

 

There’s stillness. Quiet. 

 

Someone is calling his name.

 

“Bucky? Buck?”

 

It’s Sam, materializing on the horizon until he appears whole, body no longer transparent, no longer unfamiliar. He stumbles. Bucky steps forward to catch him. Sam falls, quickly, slower, heavy all at once.

 

“Fuck,” Sam says quietly, and starts sobbing. “Fuck.”

 

Bucky clings to Sam, his arms unfamiliar to this form, outside of his body, far from home. He closes his eyes, lets the light wash over him. It’s bright, but not blinding like a hospital ward. Bright like the sun through the blinds in his apartment when he was cowering in a corner, nightmares far behind and right on his heels all at once. Sam’s warm, relaxes under his grip, and Bucky sighs, feels his ribcage in, out, a little delayed, a little surreal. He shuts his eyes against the crawling sensation under his skin, buries his face in Sam’s neck as Sam cries.

 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky manages after a few seconds. More voices are joining them, a few muffled thumps on the ground like bombs in the distance. “I’m sorry, I don’t – I can’t –”

 

“You don’t have to,” Sam whispers. Bucky rattles out a breath, squeezes tighter.

 

Above water, as it feels, Bucky can hear someone screaming.

 

It’s Steve. He’s fighting for composure. Bucky can’t make out the words. He can picture it, Steve grasping at nothing, Steve’s eyes wet in dim light, Steve’s face as Bucky touches him  _ finally _ after more years of lost time, face falling when Bucky didn’t remember him, the grin back at the palace, the fight on the overpass. He can remember a lot, actually, more than he  _ should  _ be able to, given the amount of times they seared him with electricity, knuckles scrabbling at worn leather and metal, straining against straps to hold him down.

 

If he quiets down, he can see the green woman – Gamora – falling from somewhere high. He can see the man – Peter, someone is screaming – on a planet the color of rusted iron, and through Peter’s view he can see another Peter tripping, falling, steadying himself on Stark’s shoulder. 

 

It’s loud, like flipping through radio stations, the layers not quite coherent, but desperate all the same. Someone screams for Wanda, another with the voice of Okoye, someone cries in fear, a child shrieks for their mother, and his head could burst, easily, cave in from the pressure and cleave itself with the tension. It sounds like the fates, like death, like how the battlefield sounded, but this time, personal, every voice distinct. 

 

“Sam,” Bucky manages, hands shaking. Can Sam hear it too?

 

“Yeah,” Sam whispers. “Yeah, that’s them.”

 

When they separate, Bucky notices a few dozen others. Most have found someone to embrace, others, just a perfunctory wave and a weary nod. They all know each other, somehow, dressed in Wakandan armor or leather jackets or scrapped together outfits or suiting or pajamas. And all these people, all these – members of families, loved ones – somehow, they’re all realizing together that they’re somewhere they cannot return.

 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Sam says, a little louder. “If anything.”

 

“Yeah,” Bucky manages. “Yeah, buddy, me too.”

 

“I’m sorry,” first-Peter says, and it carries. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know why –”

 

“We have to trust them,” Gamora says. Bucky turns towards her, and Gamora looks at him, blank. He isn’t sure who she’s addressing. “We have to trust them to get us back.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

First-Peter nods.

 

A kid, a teenager, no older than eighteen, appears in the middle of their misshapen circle with a sharp, hollow sound like dropping a weapon on a metal floor. He’s shaking, Bucky notices, his forehead bloody as he appears, materializing in the space. The blood falls off of him in fakes, dirt siphoning off his chrome suit. 

 

He curls in on himself, silent, heaving. Bucky can’t see his face.

 

“It wasn’t his fault,” the kid says. The voice is familiar. Bucky kneels down beside him. The memories start to click, pieces of  _ before  _ slotting together, the grief hitting him. His voice is thick when he responds. “It wasn’t your fault, either.”

 

“It was.” The kid hides his face in his hands, shaking his head. “He asked me not to come along.”

 

Bucky comes closer into him, and the kid raises his head. It’s Parker, his eyes shiny with tears. “I know you’re scared,” Sam adds, and what the _hell_ are you supposed to tell a teenager who’s gone through so much trauma so young, fallen headfirst into things Bucky wouldn’t wish anyone else experience like he did? How are you supposed to comfort someone torn from everything they know in a world where laws don’t apply? How do you soothe not just an ache, but a sorrow and confusion so deep it pierces your chest and concaves on your lungs?

 

“I think we’re all scared,” Sam adds, and Parker looks at him. Another dulled sound, and a burst of red energy towards the sky, fizzling out. Oh. “But at least we’re all here, yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“We can figure it out later,” Bucky adds. “We don’t need to know all the rules right now.”

 

“Yeah,” Parker repeats, sniffling. It’s not very assertive, more comforting than anything else. “Yeah, okay.”

 

“I got you,” Sam says, pulling Parker to his chest, and Parker bursts into tears all over again. Sam looks at Bucky, mournful and unsure, and Bucky gazes back.

 

Sorrow, sorrow, Stark’s voice through the radio static screaming  _ Peter, kid, please _ . 

 

God, what Bucky wouldn’t give to be able to tell Stark, tell Steve, it’s gonna be okay. Somehow. They can wait.

 

They’ll pick up the pieces. They’ll let it sink in. They’ll stay, bide their time, find ways to survive.

 

They always have.

  
  



End file.
